Too Much Chess?

Can there be such a thing? Well it is a bit mind blowing at the moment. The first Grand Prix tournament in Baku is seeing Caruana cement his second place in the ranking list, and make a bid for first. Int he live ratings he is only 12 points behind Carlsen. Caruana's rise is definitely for the good of chess, and his challenge to Carlsen has enlivened the chess world. Whatever the result of the upcoming World Championship in November, what most of us will be thinking is the likelihood of a future match between Caruana and Carlsen.

Beisdes the Grand Prix event, there are other important events happening at the moment. The World Junior, coming hot on the heals of the World Youth Championships, is taking place in India and sees a strong field including 5 players rated above 2600. Unfortunately, there are no Australian players in either the boys or girls tournaments. I'm not sure why this is the case as the tournament would have been a great experience for the young players involved. Chinese superstar Yi Wei will be a tough player to beat and sits on 3/3, though I'm hoping for a good performance from Jan-Krystof Duda from my father's home country of Poland. In the girls event, the favourite is defending champion Aleksandra Goryachkina from Russia. However, Goryachkina has already dropped half a point and is on 2.5/3, the same score as second seed Meri Arabidze from Georgia. Both these talented teenagers will be playing in the women's world championship, if it actually goes ahead!

Another talented young player, Maxime Vachier-Legrave is playing at the PokerStars International on the Isle of Man. This has brought back fond memories for me as the last tournament I played before leaving the UK to emigrate for Australia was in the Isle of Man. Unfortunately, I had a stinking cold for the first few rounds and played very badly, but still had a great time there. This time round, Vachier-Legrave is leading the tournament on 4.5/5, but he has a bunch of very strong players packed behind him. For me personally, it is inspirational seeing players who I have played fighting it out at the top level.

Finally, I have been looking at games from the past again. For some reason, the greats of the past who were so inspirational fascinate me more than the current batch of players. Anyway, I have been looking at some games from the great St Petersburg tournament of 1909 which was jointly won by Rubinstein and Lasker 3.5 points ahead of a world class field. The tournament was run as a memorial to the great Russian player Mikhail Chigorin. After this great first event, there was quite a gap unti the next Chigorin Memorial, which was won by Botvinnik in 1947. The tournament became an annual event only in 1963 and was won by Polugaevsky in Sochi. Since 1993, the Chigorin Memorial has been run as a swiss event back in St Petersburg. This year's event starts on October 18th, an auspicious day in the history of yours truly!

In the Isle of Man, young Melbourne FM Chris Wallis is playing and has scored a draw against American GM James Tarjan who seems to be making a comeback to chess. However, I was really impressed with his finish to the following game against Israeli IM Eylon Nakar. Maybe I'm looking at too many of those old games, but I still enjoy a queen sacrifice to finish the game.

The Last Chess Post

Tomorrow I'm off on holiday, and won't be thinking about chess for about 3 weeks. This blog will be turning into a travelogue following a roadtrip that I will be undertaking with my wife Caroline around the Western states of the USA. But here is one last post to do with chess before going.

First let's talk about me. I've dropped out of the tournament scene this year, and I'm happy to say that I'm playing in a small event soon after I get back from holiday. The Melbourne Chess Club is running a one day event for groups of 4 players. These quads will be rated in the Australian list, but not in the FIDE list. The games are played at a 60 + 20 time limit (or near to that) and the entry fee covers the cost of rating the games, so there are no prizes. I'm happy with that, as I'd just like to play, though my preparation is going to be wholly psychological, and nothing to do with chess. Hopefully I will feel invigorated after my holiday, so even if my chess is a bit rusty, a positive frame of mind will make up for it. At least that's the plan!

But I wouldn't be immodest enough to tip myself to win this small event. In fact, looking at the growing list of players, I'll be happy with any points at all. But I've learned that tipping is no easy thing. My recent choice of Levon Aronian to take out the Sinquefield Cup in St. Louis went spectacularly wrong. Aronian only finished 3rd out of 4 players, and the tournament was won convincingly by World Championship challenger and World number 1, Magnus Carlsen. In the last round, Aronian needed to win against Carlsen to catch him, but offered a draw which was all Magnus needed for first. But in true fighting spirit, Carlsen turned down the draw offer and went on to win the game and the tournament. After this performance, he must surely be considered a favourite to become the next World Champion in November.

My one tip that is coming good is in the Women's World Championship where Yifan Hou is leading Anna Ushenina by 3-1. To be honest, this wasn't too surprising. I think more people were surprised by Ushenina's victory in the World Championship last year, and certainly by Hou's exit. Although this match has a way to go yet,  am hopeful that I have one tip right this time round. As for the Junior World Championship, I wonder whether Wesley So knew I'd tipped him, as the Philippine star is not participating even though his name was on the start list prior to the tournament commencing. The top seeds are now Yangyi Yu and defending champion, Alexander Ipatov. While I'm not going to tip anyone now, I hope that Polish IM J Duda, and Swedish GM Nils Grandelius have good tournaments. Both have started well and are near the top boards as the tournament approaches a third of the way through. In the girls event I'll stick with Goryachkina. She is a great risk taker, and I thought she'd overdone it in the first round (perhaps her opponent had some chance for an advantage with 17.Nc4), but she continually fought for the initiative and won the game. Aleksandra Garyachkina has started with a perfect 3/3 though there's a long way to go.




Finally, I'd like to wish Australian Grand Master David Smerdon a happy Birthday for tomorrow, as I probably won't get the chance tomorrow. Besides being a strong player, David is a great commentator for ICC and would surely have had a great showing in the top English speaking Chess commentator poll recently run by ACP President Emil Sutovsky. Unfortunately, David was overlooked in the starting line up, and the poll was headed by English IM Lawrence Trent. I think Aussies need to campaign to see David get his name on that list and take the coveted position as Best English Language Chess Commentator!

Chess to Follow

This week 3 major events start. In St Louis, USA Carlsen, Aronian, Nakamura and Kamsky play a double round robin tournament. This will be Carlsen's last event before the World Championship match so it is being closely followed by the chess world. The first games start today with a mini match between USA and RoW, Carlsen-Kamsky and Nakamura-Aronian. I will be catching up with the news the day after it happens, as the time zones are not good for live coverage in Australia. The games of the Sinquefield Cup start about 5am Melbourne time, so I might get to see the finish of the games.

 Meanwhile in Turkey, the World Junior Championship starts later this week. This will be weaker than it possibly should be due to the original venue being too close to war torn Syria's border. The late change of venue by Turkish organisers (last week) didn't allow for players who had decided not to play to change their minds, so there are some notable absentees. Saying that, it is still a pretty good field with Wesley So of the Philippines the top seed. Unfortunately for me, there are no Australian or English competitors to follow. However, the tournament games start on Friday and run through till Thursday 26th in a 13 round swiss format.

The third event starting this week should be the most prestigious. The Women's World Championship starts on Tuesday. The match between Anna Ushenina and Yifan Hou is being held in China and has attracted little media attention in its build up. The fact that China's Yifan Hou is an overwhelming favourite to take the match. and because the men's elite tournament is happening simultaneously in the USA, I guess this event will rate lowly in order of importance. To be honest, I'm a bit mystified as to what is actually happening with the women's World Championship. There was a knock out World Championship held last year, and a Grand Prix series. Reigning World Champion, Yifan Hou, won the Grand Prix qualifying her for the World Championship match. Yet Anna Ushenina won the World Championship tournament making her the World Champion. It therefore seems a bit odd that we need a World Championship tournament one year, and a World Championship match in the next year. Or am I missing something? I can't seem to find a website for this event, so I'll be following it on TWIC for now.

I quite enjoyed playing tipster for the recently finished World Cup so I'm warming to the task and will set out my choices for these events. By the way, I am currently on 20% correct, so please don't listen to anything I say!

St Louis: Aronian to win
World Junior: So for the boys, and Goryachkina for the Girls
Women's World Championship: Yifan Hou to regain her title

No chance for a breather

Following chess tournaments is now an ongoing experience. There is no shortage of events and as soon as one finishes another starts. The super GM event in Biel finished with Wang Hao taking first prize thanks to the 3 points for a win, soccer style scoring system. Under the more traditional 1 point for a win the winner would have been World number 1 Magnus Carlsen. But Magnus can be content with his performance, and the fact that his rating has moved closer to Kasparov's peak of 2851, and further from his rivals.

Rather than taking a breath and working out when the next big event will take place, there is no break as the Russian Championship starts today. Both the men's and women's sections boast excellent fields and National Championships often bring interesting results as the players know each other well. It seems to be a time for national championships with the British about to conclude and the Ukrainian entering the second half. These Championships are run on different levels, with the British being a medium sized swiss and the Ukrainian being an elite round robin.

The British has one round to go and is being led by GM Stephen Gordon who is half a point ahead of ratings favourite GM Gawain Jones, who is himself half a point clear of GM David Howell. But for me the swiss system event is all about players getting a chance to move up and in the British Marcus Osborne has taken his chance. I can't say I know him, but the 2245 rated player has scored 6.5 against a field that includes 3 GM's (and he has to face another in the final round!) and 2 IM's. His performance rating after the first 10 rounds is a whopping 2433 so a big congratulations to him.

Another interesting event that has just started is the World Junior Championship in Turkey. The tournament has a rich history dating back to 1951 when Yugoslav Boris Ivkov took the title. Ivkov went on to become a World Championship Candidate and other famous winners of the World Junior include Spassky, Karpov, Kasparov, Anand, Miles and Aronian. The current event has over 10 GM's, 4 of which are over 2600. again, you'll have to excuse my national pride as I cheer on the Australians (Andrew Brown and Fedja Zulfic, but sadly no players in the girls event) and English (Zhou Yang-Fan, Callum KilPatrick, William Jones, Ravi Haria, Henryk Stepanyan are all in the boys section while the girls section has Lateefah Messam-Sparks and Anna York-Andersen). The tournament started yesterday and hopefully we'll get some first hand experiences. Already in the first round, one of the Australians performed well above his rating. Fedja Zulfic (2135) scored a draw with IM Bajarani (2446) of Azerbaijan. Fedja found a nice resource in his endgame.

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